The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean

The boat launched—­We visit the coral reef—­The great breaker that never goes down—­Coral insects—­The way in which coral islands are made—­The boat’s sail—­We tax our ingenuity to form fish-hooks—­Some of the fish we saw—­And a monstrous whale—­Wonderful shower of little fish—­Water-spouts.

It was a bright, clear, beautiful morning when we first launched our little boat, and rowed out upon the placid waters of the lagoon.  Not a breath of wind ruffled the surface of the deep.  Not a cloud spotted the deep blue sky.  Not a sound that was discordant broke the stillness of the morning, although there were many sounds, sweet, tiny, and melodious, that mingled in the universal harmony of nature.  The sun was just rising from the Pacific’s ample bosom and tipping the mountaintops with a red glow.  The sea was shining like a sheet of glass, yet heaving with the long deep swell that, all the world round, indicates the life of ocean; and the bright seaweeds and the brilliant corals shone in the depths of that pellucid water, as we rowed over it, like rare and precious gems.  Oh! it was a sight fitted to stir the soul of man to its profoundest depths, and, if he owned a heart at all, to lift that heart in adoration and gratitude to the great Creator of this magnificent and glorious universe.

At first, in the strength of our delight, we rowed hither and thither without aim or object.  But after the effervescence of our spirits was abated, we began to look about us and to consider what we should do.

“I vote that we row to the reef,” cried Peterkin.

“And I vote that we visit the islands within the lagoon,” said I.

“And I vote we do both,” cried Jack; “so pull away, boys.”

As I have already said, we had made four oars, but our boat was so small that only two were necessary.  The extra pair were reserved in case any accident should happen to the others.  It was therefore only needful that two of us should row, while the third steered, by means of an oar, and relieved the rowers occasionally.

First we landed on one of the small islands and ran all over it, but saw nothing worthy of particular notice.  Then we landed on a larger island, on which were growing a few cocoa-nut trees.  Not having eaten anything that morning, we gathered a few of the nuts and breakfasted.  After this we pulled straight out to sea and landed on the coral reef.

This was indeed a novel and interesting sight to us.  We had now been so long on shore that we had almost forgotten the appearance of breakers, for there were none within the lagoon; but now, as we stood beside the foam-crested billow of the open sea, all the enthusiasm of the sailor was awakened in our breasts, and as we gazed on the widespread ruin of that single magnificent breaker that burst in thunder at our feet, we forgot the Coral Island behind us; we forgot our bower and the calm repose of the scented woods; we forgot all that had passed during the last few months, and remembered nothing but the storms, the calms, the fresh breezes and the surging billows of the open sea.

This huge, ceaseless breaker, to which I have so often alluded, was a much larger and more sublime object than we had at all imagined it to be.  It rose many yards above the level of the sea, and could be seen approaching at some distance from the reef.  Slowly and majestically it came on, acquiring greater volume and velocity as it advanced, until it assumed the form of a clear watery arch, which sparkled in the bright sun.  On it came with resistless and solemn majesty—­the upper edge lipped gently over, and it fell with a roar that seemed as though the heart of Ocean were broken in the crash of tumultuous water, while the foam-clad coral reef appeared to tremble beneath the mighty shock!

We gazed long and wonderingly at this great sight, and it was with difficulty we could tear ourselves away from it.  As I have once before mentioned, this wave broke in many places over the reef and scattered some of its spray into the lagoon, but in most places the reef was sufficiently broad and elevated to receive and check its entire force.  In many places the coral rocks were covered with vegetation—­the beginning, as it appeared to us, of future islands.  Thus, on this reef, we came to perceive how most of the small islands of those seas are formed.  On one part we saw the spray of the breaker washing over the rocks, and millions of little, active, busy creatures continuing the work of building up this living rampart.  At another place, which was just a little too high for the waves to wash over it, the coral insects were all dead; for we found that they never did their work above water.  They had faithfully completed the mighty work which their Creator had given them to do, and they were now all dead.  Again, in other spots the ceaseless lashing of the sea had broken the dead coral in pieces, and cast it up in the form of sand.  Here sea-birds had alighted, little pieces of seaweed and stray bits of wood had been washed up, seeds of plants had been carried by the wind, and a few lovely blades of bright green had already sprung up, which, when they died, would increase the size and fertility of these emeralds of Ocean.  At other places these islets had grown apace, and were shaded by one or two cocoa-nut trees, which grew, literally, in the sand, and were constantly washed by the ocean spray; yet, as I have before remarked, their fruit was most refreshing and sweet to our taste.

Again at this time Jack and I pondered the formation of the large coral islands.  We could now understand how the low ones were formed; but the larger islands cost us much consideration, yet we could arrive at no certain conclusion on the subject.

Having satisfied our curiosity and enjoyed ourselves during the whole day in our little boat, we returned somewhat wearied, and withal rather hungry, to our bower.

“Now,” said Jack, “as our boat answers so well, we will get a mast and sail made immediately.”

“So we will,” cried Peterkin, as we all assisted to drag the boat above high-water mark.  “We’ll light our candle and set about it this very night.  Hurrah, my boys, pull away!”

As we dragged our boat, we observed that she grated heavily on her keel, and as the sands were in this place mingled with broken coral rocks, we saw portions of the wood being scraped off.

“Hallo!” cried Jack on seeing this, “that won’t do.  Our keel will be worn off in no time at this rate.”

“So it will,” said I, pondering deeply as to how this might be prevented.  But I am not of a mechanical turn naturally, so I could conceive no remedy save that of putting a plate of iron on the keel; but as we had no iron, I knew not what was to be done.  “It seems to me, Jack,” I added, “that it is impossible to prevent the keel being worn off thus.”

“Impossible!” cried Peterkin.  “My dear Ralph, you are mistaken; there is nothing so easy.”

“How?” I inquired, in some surprise.

“Why, by not using the boat at all!” replied Peterkin.

“Hold your impudent tongue, Peterkin,” said Jack, as he shouldered the oars; “come along with me, and I’ll give you work to do.  In the first place, you will go and collect cocoa-nut fibre, and set to work to make sewing twine with it—­”

“Please, captain,” interrupted Peterkin, “I’ve got lots of it made already—­more than enough, as a little friend of mine used to be in the habit of saying every day after dinner.”

“Very well,” continued Jack; “then you’ll help Ralph to collect cocoa-nut cloth, and cut it into shape, after which we’ll make a sail of it.  I’ll see to getting the mast and the gearing; so let’s to work.”

And to work we went right busily, so that in three days from that time we had set up a mast and sail, with the necessary rigging, in our little boat.  The sail was not, indeed, very handsome to look at, as it was formed of a number of oblong patches of cloth; but we had sewed it well by means of our sail-needle, so that it was strong, which was the chief point.  Jack had also overcome the difficulty about the keel, by pinning to it a false keel.  This was a piece of tough wood, of the same length and width as the real keel, and about five inches deep.  He made it of this depth because the boat would be thereby rendered not only much more safe, but more able to beat against the wind; which, in a sea where the trade-winds blow so long and so steadily in one direction, was a matter of great importance.  This piece of wood was pegged very firmly to the keel; and we now launched our boat with the satisfaction of knowing that when the false keel should be scraped off, we could easily put on another; whereas, should the real keel have been scraped away, we could not have renewed it without taking our boat to pieces, which Peterkin said made his “marrow quake to think upon.”

The mast and sail answered excellently, and we now sailed about in the lagoon with great delight, and examined with much interest the appearance of our island from a distance.  Also, we gazed into the depths of the water, and watched for hours the gambols of the curious and bright-coloured fish among the corals and seaweed.  Peterkin also made a fishing-line, and Jack constructed a number of hooks, some of which were very good, others remarkably bad.  Some of these hooks were made of iron-wood, which did pretty well, the wood being extremely hard, and Jack made them very thick and large.  Fish there are not particular.  Some of the crooked bones in fish-heads also answered for this purpose pretty well.  But that which formed our best and most serviceable hook was the brass finger-ring belonging to Jack.  It gave him not a little trouble to manufacture it.  First he cut it with the axe then twisted it into the form of a hook.  The barb took him several hours to cut.  He did it by means of constant sawing with the broken penknife.  As for the point, an hour’s rubbing on a piece of sandstone made an excellent one.

It would be a matter of much time and labour to describe the appearance of the multitudes of fish that were day after day drawn into our boat by means of the brass hook.  Peterkin always caught them—­for we observed that he derived much pleasure from fishing—­while Jack and I found ample amusement in looking on, also in gazing down at the coral groves, and in baiting the hook.  Among the fish that we saw, but did not catch, were porpoises and sword-fish, whales and sharks.  The porpoises came frequently into our lagoon in shoals, and amused us not a little by their bold leaps into the air and their playful gambols in the sea.  The sword-fish were wonderful creatures; some of them apparently ten feet in length, with an ivory spear six or eight feet long projecting from their noses.  We often saw them darting after other fish, and no doubt they sometimes killed them with their ivory swords.  Jack remembered having heard once of a sword-fish attacking a ship —­which seemed strange indeed; but as they are often in the habit of attacking whales, perhaps it mistook the ship for one.  This sword-fish ran against the vessel with such force that it drove its sword quite through the thick planks, and when the ship arrived in harbour, long afterwards, the sword was found still sticking in it!

Sharks did not often appear, but we took care never again to bathe in deep water without leaving one of our number in the boat to give us warning, if he should see a shark approaching.  As for the whales, they never came into our lagoon, but we frequently saw them spouting in the deep water beyond the reef.  I shall never forget my surprise the first day I saw one of these huge monsters close to me.  We had been rambling about on the reef during the morning, and were about to re-embark in our little boat to return home, when a loud blowing sound caused us to wheel rapidly round.  We were just in time to see a shower of spray falling, and the flukes or tail of some monstrous fish disappear in the sea a few hundred yards off.  We waited some time to see if he would rise again.  As we stood, the sea seemed to open up at our very feet; an immense spout of water was sent with a snort high into the air, and the huge, blunt head of a sperm whale rose before us.  It was so large that it could easily have taken our little boat, along with ourselves, into its mouth!  It plunged slowly back into the sea, like a large ship foundering, and struck the water with its tail so forcibly as to cause a sound like a cannon shot.

We also saw a great number of flying-fish, although we caught none; and we noticed that they never flew out of the water except when followed by their bitter foe the dolphin, from whom they thus endeavoured to escape.  But of all the fish that we saw, none surprised us so much as those that we used to find in shallow pools after a shower of rain; and this not on account of their appearance, for they were ordinary-looking and very small, but on account of their having descended in a shower of rain!  We could account for them in no other way, because the pools in which we found these fish were quite dry before the shower, and at some distance above high-water mark.  Jack, however, suggested a cause which seemed to me very probable.  We used often to see water-spouts in the sea.  A water-spout is a whirling body of water, which rises from the sea like a sharp-pointed pillar.  After rising a good way, it is met by a long tongue, which comes down from the clouds; and when the two have joined, they look something like an hour-glass.  The water-spout is then carried by the wind, sometimes gently, sometimes with violence, over the sea, sometimes up into the clouds, and then, bursting asunder, it descends in a deluge.  This often happens over the land as well as over the sea; and it sometimes does much damage, but frequently it passes gently away.  Now, Jack thought that the little fish might perhaps have been carried up in a water-spout, and so sent down again in a shower of rain.  But we could not be certain as to this point, yet we thought it likely.

During these delightful fishing and boating excursions we caught a good many eels, which we found to be very good to eat.  We also found turtles among the coral rocks, and made excellent soup in our iron kettle.  Moreover, we discovered many shrimps and prawns, so that we had no lack of variety in our food; and, indeed, we never passed a week without making some new and interesting discovery of some sort or other, either on the land or in the sea.